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Enrollment in smartphone upgrade plans among U.S. consumers has more than quadrupled since September 2013, going from 7 to 31 percent by the end of the first quarter of 2014, according to a new report from the NPD Group. The report is yet another data point indicating a major shift in how Americans pay for their cell phones.

The number of tablets in the United States using an embedded cellular connection jumped 46 percent in 2013 to 10.4 million, up from 7.1 million in 2012, according to the a new report from NPD's Connected Intelligence Mobile Connectivity Report. Strikingly, that increase came despite the fact that sales of cellular-capable tablets actually declined from 16 percent of total tablet sales in 2012 to 12 percent in 2013, according to NPD's Retail Tracking Service.

Apple and Samsung Electronics' dominance over the smartphone market, in the United States in particular, is well-known. However, a new measure of just how tight a grip the two companies have comes from research firm the NPD Group, which found that in the fourth quarter the two companies grabbed 68 percent of total U.S. smartphone ownership.

According to new data from research firm NPD group, AT&T Mobility serviced almost half of all the tablets in the nation that connected to cellular networks in the first quarter. However, the percentage of tablets that actually do connect to 3G or 4G networks is relatively small--NPD found that only 12 percent of all tablets in the United States connect to cellular networks.

Another research firm, this time the NPD Group, has predicted that shipments of smartphones will overtake those of basic and feature phones for the first time this year, as adoption of smartphones accelerates.

Nearly one-third of U.S smartphone sales in the first quarter were on prepaid carriers, the highest on record, according to a report from the NPD Group. The statistic is another indication of prepaid's growing momentum in the smartphone market.

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